Additional information

Description

FROM ALBUM NOTES by Paolo Porto:

Frivolous, elegant, pleasant: Piano four hands is often linked, in the collective imagination, to a “dancing” repertoire, usually played by young students with their Maestro. This is certainly an aspect, but on the other side we find out transcription of symphonic movements or chamber music, adaptation from orchestra of famous and important pieces of music. It was a very common and easy way, especially in the XIX century, to listen to a symphonic music in all the places with just a piano. The extention of the keyboard and four hands are useful to reproduce all the orchestral sections or the complexity of a quartet thought. From this point comes the idea to use this tradition and increase it, transcribing orchestral pieces (like Ouverture of Die Fledermaus) or works originally for two pianos (Scaramouche), creating suite from operas (like “Die Dreigroschenoper”) and go back in time transforming the music of Vivaldi in some composer because the suite Scaramouche, with his persistent rhythm, with his irony, and with his beautiful lyricism, became an important and classic piece of the piano duet repertoire. […] (Translation by Nicolò Ciuffi)

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Composer

Darius Milhaud: (b Marseilles, 4 Sept 1892; d Geneva, 22 June 1974). French composer. He was associated with the avant garde of the 1920s, whose abundant production reflects all musical genres. A pioneer in the use of percussion, polytonality, jazz and aleatory techniques, his music allies lyricism with often complex harmonies. Though his sources of inspiration were many and varied, his music has compelling stylistic unity.

Kurt Weill: (b Dessau, 2 March 1900; d New York, 3 April 1950). German composer, American citizen from 1943. He was one of the outstanding composers in the generation that came to maturity after World War I, and a key figure in the development of modern forms of musical theatre. His successful and innovatory work for Broadway during the 1940s was a development in more popular terms of the exploratory stage works that had made him the foremost avant-garde theatre composer of the Weimar Republic.

Artist(s)

Duo Porto-Frontini (Piano 4 Hands)Paolo Porto and Ileana Frontini, who have always played as soloists and in chamber music, decided to create a piano duet during a concert for the oncological Hospital at Carrara. As well as the traditional repertoire, the Duo has chosen to play trancriptions of orchestral music, according to the XIX century tradition. Because of that they decided to continue along the way of playing scores already written for piano duet and pieces not yet transcript ( without distinction of genre, from Baroque perdiod to XX century ) and, why not, the idea to commission new music to composers.
After they’ve won some competitions in Italy ( Piove di sacco, Città di Montalto, Città di Genova) the Duo decided to follow a Masterclass led by Maestro J. Paratore ( famous for his piano duet with his brother Anthony ) at Sommerakademie der Mozarteum, Salzburg, during the summer of 2010/2011 where they had the opportunity to play a concert in the city invited by the University Director. Guests of different institution and organization ( Pianocity, ExPo Milano, Festival delle cinque giornate di Milano, Festival di Bellagio e del Lago di Como, Festival delle Nazioni di Roma, Amici delle Musica di Imperia, Il faro di Tevennac di Benevento, Note Romantiche di Verbania, associazione Rachmaninoff di Salerno ) they recorded for important labels as Archivi del Novecento. Recently they’ve published their last CD about the chamber music of F. Kulhau with Brilliant Classics.